Software Project Management

1. Information TechnologyInformation Technology
Project Management, SixthProject Management, Sixth
EditionEdition
Note: See the text itself for full citations.

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Management, Sixth Edition 2
The three-sphere model of systems management deals with the
business, organizational and technological aspects and/or issues
related to the project that should be defined and considered in
order to select and manage projects effectively and successfully
Business:
A project should supplement or serve as an answer to the business
goals
Business Issue:
 What will the project cost the company:
 What would be the impact of the website to the sales of the
magazine?
 What would be the cost of maintaining the whole system for the
website?

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Technology:
The technological sphere should state the proper hardware and
software issues to be resolved
Technological Issues:
 What operating system, server platform, scripting language and
database should be used?
 Does our current network setup allow employees to develop this
project, or do we need an upgrade?
 What will be the server and desktop specifications?

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Organization:
As for the organizational aspect, matters involving the stakeholders
should be taken into full consideration
Organizational Issues:
 Do we have the existing manpower to develop the project?
 What is the higher management support required?
 Do we have infrastructure to complete the project?
 If the project manager would be able to point out as early as
possible the aforementioned issues and integrate it to the project
it would definitely aid in determining if an organization should
invest and produce the project.

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 People in top management positions are key
stakeholders in projects
 A very important factor in helping project managers
successfully lead projects is the level of commitment
and support they receive from top management
 Without top management commitment, many projects
will fail
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Management, Sixth Edition 6

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 Providing adequate resources
 Approving unique project needs in a timely
manner
 Getting cooperation from other parts of the
organization
 Mentoring and coaching
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 A project life cycle is a collection of project
phases that defines:
◦ What work will be performed in each phase
◦ What deliverables will be produced and when
◦ Who is involved in each phase
◦ How management will control and approve work
produced in each phase
 A deliverable is a product or service produced or
provided as part of a project
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 In early phases of a project life cycle:
◦ Resource needs are usually lowest
◦ The level of uncertainty (risk) is highest
◦ Project stakeholders have the greatest opportunity to
influence the project
 In middle phases of a project life cycle:
◦ The certainty of completing a project improves
◦ More resources are needed
 The final phase of a project life cycle focuses on:
◦ Ensuring that project requirements were met
◦ The sponsor approves completion of the project
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 Products also have life cycles
 The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is
a framework for describing the phases involved in
developing and maintaining information systems
 Systems development projects can follow
◦ Predictive life cycle: the scope of the project can be
clearly articulated and the schedule and cost can be
predicted
◦ Adaptive Software Development (ASD) life cycle:
requirements cannot be clearly expressed, projects are
mission driven and component based, using time-based
cycles to meet target dates
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 Waterfall model: has well-defined, linear stages of
systems development and support
 Spiral model: shows that software is developed
using an iterative or spiral approach rather than a
linear approach
 Incremental build model: provides for progressive
development of operational software
 Prototyping model: used for developing prototypes
to clarify user requirements
 Rapid Application Development (RAD) model:
used to produce systems quickly without
sacrificing quality
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Agile software development is a group of
software development methods in which requirements
and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-
organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive
planning, evolutionary development, early delivery,
continuous improvement and encourages rapid and
flexible response to change. It is a conceptual framework
that focuses on frequently delivering small increments of
working software.
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 A project should successfully pass through each
of the project phases in order to continue on to the
next
 Management reviews, also called phase exits or
kill points, should occur after each phase to
evaluate the project’s progress, likely success,
and continued compatibility with organizational
goals
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 IT projects can be very diverse in terms of size,
complexity, products produced, application area,
and resource requirements
 IT project team members often have diverse
backgrounds and skill sets
 IT projects use diverse technologies that change
rapidly; even within one technology area, people
must be highly specialized
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 Globalization: lower trade and political barriers
and the digital revolution have made it possible to
interact almost instantaneously with billions of
other people across the planet
 Outsourcing: outsourcing is when an
organization acquires goods and/or sources from
an outside source; offshoring is sometimes used
to describe outsourcing from another country
 Virtual teams: a virtual team is a group of
individuals who work across time and space using
communication technologies
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 Issues
◦ Communications
◦ Trust
◦ Common work practices
◦ Tools
 Suggestions
◦ Employ greater project discipline
◦ Keep project momentum going
◦ Use newer tools and technology
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 Organizations remain competitive by using
outsourcing to their advantage, such as finding
ways to reduce costs
 Their next challenge is to make strategic IT
investments with outsourcing by improving their
enterprise architecture to ensure that IT
infrastructure and business processes are
integrated and standardized (see Suggested
Readings)
 Project managers should become more familiar with
negotiating contracts and other outsourcing issues
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 Increasing competiveness and responsiveness
by having a team of workers available 24/7
 Lowering costs because many virtual workers do
not require office space or support beyond their
home offices
 Providing more expertise and flexibility by
having team members from across the globe
working any time of day or night
 Increasing the work/life balance for team
members by eliminating fixed office hours and
the need to travel to work
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 Isolating team members
 Increasing the potential for communications
problems
 Reducing the ability for team members to network
and transfer information informally
 Increasing the dependence on technology to
accomplish work
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